5 comments

1. What is the true meaning of “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”? from the Lord’s prayer? I know that those who hold to the post millennial view interpret this in a special way. Thanks!

   • Hi Nancy,

     I’ve addressed this in a few places:

     1) Heidelminicast Series: Contra Postmillennialism

     2) Heidelcast Series: Our Father

     3) Heidelcast Series: As It Was In The Days Of Noah

     The short answer is that Christ inaugurated his kingdom with his advent (Mark 1:15) but it will not be consummated until he returns. The postmillennialists push/pull the consummation back into history, before he returns. All versions of postmillennialism effectively postpone “the millennium” until things until the dawn of the coming earthly golden age but Scripture does no such thing. The “millennium“ (a figure of speech) began with Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension. It’s here now. It’s been “the last” days since his ascension. Christ is ruling now. Steve Baugh’s book, Majesty on High deals with this very well. According to the New Testament we are living, as it were, in a valley, between two mountains. The mountain behind us is Christ’s ascension. The mountain before us is his return. He is ruling the nations with a rod of iron now, shepherding his people on the pilgrimage to the heavenly city.

2. Do you think that if the desire for some sort of cultural transformation were divorced from eschatology as much as possible (i.e. American citizens with Christian sensibilities seeking representation in civil policy and legislation, vs. Christians trying to take over the world because it’s OUR kingdom) that there might be a better chance of success, as non theocons could then ‘join hands’ in the endeavor with clearer conscience, or do you think the whole enterprise is necessarily grounded in bad hermeneutics?

3. I appreciate the critique of Doug Wilson. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a rightly-justified excoriation. Yet, I’m not sure that it really dealt with the underlying reason why so many Christian homeschoolers are attracted to Wilson/Moscow in the first place: because he fills a void that reformed Christians have left wide open.

   If you’re a reformed Christian homeschooler, your curriculum choices basically amount to: 1) Doug Wilson, or 2) Dispensational. Perhaps you could add a third category for Rushdoony-inspired theonomy. The options for Christian schools is basically the same.

   On the one hand, reformed Christians are increasingly screaming to all who will listen to get their children OUT of the public schools. I agree with this sentiment, and have even said it myself. But if we’re sending people out of the public schools, what are we sending them into? It seems to me that the absolute paucity of genuinely solid reformed home and Christian schooling curriculum indicates that we haven’t fully thought this through. And as long as this gap exists, sending Christians out of the public schools is only likely to send them into the waiting arms of Doug Wilson.

   • Ben,

     I appreciate this but I’m not sure I agree. We homeschooled our kids before there were the resources that exist today and there are a lot of resources. Yes, some of them (perhaps most?) are fundamentalist or theonomic but there are classical resources that are neither. We were able to put together a curriculum that avoided the Scylla and Charybdis by being eclectic. We used some secular materials, some religious materials, and our kids were well educated.

     That’s not to say that we can’t do better re curricula. One challenge is that all the energy & resources in the P&R world tend to go toward Christian schools, which is understandable. The homeschoolers are neglected because of it.

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